A port is not considered a traditional municipality, but port maintenance is public works too. A port is comparable in size and number of assets as a small city or town, yet the service demands are as high if not higher than a large metropolitan city.

Some unique features are that a port must deal with numerous and varying international customers adhering to international trade regulations, and that the funding is largely supplied by revenues from port tenants rather than tax payers’ dollars and federal funding. Though the revenue source and customer basis might be different, the groups within the port Maintenance Division perform functions very similar to a full-service municipality, including road and water and wastewater maintenance.

This presentation shows how, like any agency, a port needs to continually improve and the foremost way is to structure its operations like a traditional municipality and organize management effort by asset type such as utility roads, buildings etc.. Further it will show how an operations review and benchmarking efforts helped identify areas for improvement in ports in a manner similar to cities and counties.